The total market cap for cryptocurrency has reached an all-time high, breaking the $600 billion USD barrier.
No matter how you slice it, 2017 has been a banner year for cryptocurrency. Despite all the impending doom talk from the usual talking heads in the financial media, cryptocurrency continues to gain speed as it cheerily chugs along. Now the doubters and naysayers have another reason to gnash their teeth in frustration as the cryptocurrency market cap has reached $600 billion USD.
Attaining New Heights
The cryptocurrency market cap breached $600 billion early this morning and will likely dip back and forth across that line throughout the day. Leading the charge is Bitcoin, which has a robust market cap of over $329 billion. Coming in second is Ethereum, with a total of almost $70 billion market cap. Rounding out the top five are: Bitcoin Cash ($31.6 billion), the surging Ripple ($29 billion), and the popular Litecoin ($17.5 billion).
To say that this is a big achievement is a huge understatement. One wonders if Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned the profound impact cryptocurrency would have upon the world when he revealed Bitcoin back in 2009. We’ve come a long way since then, and 2017 has been absolutely gangbusters. Remember that it was just five days ago that the market cap for virtual currencies reached $500 billion (half a trillion dollars!).
Surpassing Industry Giants
The cryptocurrency march to dominance has left quite a few corporate and financial entities in the dust. It’s amazing to see how quickly crypto is surpassing the market cap of long-established companies, and I have to admit that it was sheer joy to see cryptocurrency surpass JPMorgan Chase in value (take that, Jamie Dimon!).
Right now, three major companies have more market cap that cryptocurrency: Apple ($873 billion), Alphabet (Google – almost $716 billion), and Microsoft ($640 billion). Here is a quick sampler of some of the companies that are now lower than the market cap of the combined cryptocurrencies:
Amazon ($531 billion)
Facebook ($523 billion)
JPMorgan Chase ($355.6 billion)
Exxon Mobil ($352 billion)
Bank of America ($288 billion)
Wal-Mart ($261 billion)
Intel ($214 billion)
Coca-Cola ($196 billion)
Toyota ($184 billion)
General Electric ($174 billion)
Pepsico ($157 billion)
Walt Disney ($151 billion)
McDonalds ($135 billion)
2017 may go down as the Year of the Bitcoin, but a lot of other virtual currencies are helping lead the crypto revolution. We’ve seen the launch of Bitcoin futures trading, and many of the giant financial groups that once warned about cryptocurrency are now scurrying to get their piece of the action. Just imagine what could happen over the remaining two weeks of the year! Could the cryptocurrency market cap hit $700 billion?
What do you think about the market cap for cryptocurrency reaching $600 billion just five days after hitting $500 billion? How far do you think it can go? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Pixabay and Bitcoinist archives.